Dave's TF EarthSpark Rant: Cyber-Combiners Wave 1 (and probably only)

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers EarthSpark Rant: Cyber-Combiner Wave 1

Terran Twitch & Robby Malto (Drone and Exo-suit)
Bumblebee & Mo Malto (Sportscar and Exo-suit)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/ES/CyberCombiner1

There wasn't much buzz about these, to the point that the first time I
knew they were coming was when I saw them on the shelf. These may be
replacing the spin-changers at the $30 price point, and it's a rather
surprising (to me) return to Energon-style shirt/pants combiners. In each
set, the human partner is in an Exo-suit that doesn't have a vehicle mode (at
least not officially), just humanoid, shirt, and pants. To their credit,
Robby and Mo aren't just head-swaps with identical Exo-suits, Robby is in a
beefier land-based suit while Mo is in a slimmer flight-capable suit.

(Note, I wrote this review in nothing resembling the order you see
things, apologies if there's weird redundancies or rough transitions.)


CAPSULES

$30 at Target.

Terran Twitch & Robby Malto: More solidly constructed than first year
EarthSpark toys, and much better than I'd expected from EarthSpark. Good
play value, and quality control is passable. Twitch's altmode isn't that
great, not a lot better than the fan mode I worked up for Robby (who's not
supposed to have an altmode). Despite a number of flaws, I really liked this
set as toys, so it gets a Recommended.

Bumblebee & Mo Malto: Bumblebee is a little better than Twitch, and Mo
could have been better than Robby but suffers from some "if they'd only
tweaked the mold here" issues and what I'm guessing are rampant tolerance
failures. Assuming I just got a bad copy, I'd call this even with the other
set, but if the Mo problems are endemic than Twitch/Robby is the safer set if
you don't want to commit to the whole thing.


RANTS

Cyber-Combining: The premise of this assortment is that one Transformer
can combine with one of the Malto kids who has apparently figured out how to
generate an Exo-Suit with their Cyber-Sleeve, or maybe Nightshade built these
for 'em. The toy packaging doesn't do lore. The Exo-Suits do not
technically have vehicle modes, but both toys in each set can turn into the
top half (Shirt Mode) or bottom half (Pants Mode) of a combiner.
Okay, important point to get out of the way - while definitely inspired
by the Autobots in Transformers Energon, the connection system is NOT
compatible with them. It uses just two clips, an outer and an inner part of
the set on each figure. Energon used a more complicated arrangement, and the
two will not snap together (I tried). It might be possible to create a 3-D
printed waist piece to let them connect, but I'm not sure anyone would want
to bother. However, despite the smaller contact area of these connectors,
they're sufficiently solid to do the job. Not having to accomodate the
possibility of Voyager sized figures probably let them slim it down.
Like the Energon toys, they're all rather long-legged and have arms that
are relatively easy to hide away...short, skinny, or both. They all hide the
head away and have the combiner clips behind where the head was, and for
Shirt Mode they have the pelvis split in two so that the regular legs can
become arms. They all have a spring-loaded gimmick that pops out a new head
and chest for the combiner when you pull the pelvis apart (Bumblebee's won't
stay stowed unless his pelvis is fully snapped together). They all have a
way to make bigger feet when used in Pants mode, mostly flipping out
"elevator shoes" but Bumblebee has a different way. When combined, it is
possible to transform them to switch which is Shirt and which is Pants
without disconnecting them.
It's worth noting that, as with Energon, the combinations increase quite
rapidly as you add sets. Each set individually only has two combinations,
where R is Robby, T is Twitch, M is Mo, and B is Bumblebee: RT, TR, and MB,
BM. But when you have both sets you can add in RB, BR, RM, MR, MT, TM, TB,
and BT. So twelve possible combiners for $60, and that's not counting weird
choices like quad walkers or four-armed hovermechs. That's play value. I
suppose if you wanted all possible combinations you'd get two of each set and
add the four double-ups to the mix. I'm sure someone's already done that.

Packaging: This year's EarthSpark toys finally give us a separate
faction symbol for the Terrans. It's more of a human-head-shape version of
the Autobot symbol, but different above the eyes, and in light blue.
These are in windowless open-front boxes made of significantly more
robust cardboard than Studio Series uses (no accidental tears on these
babies), with the standard pseudo-rounded lower right corner of EarthSpark
toys. There's no hangtag, these are purely shelf-sitters. 9" (22.5cm) wide,
8" (20cm) tall, and 2.5" (6.5cm) deep. The trade dress is the light blue
with yellow-green accents of first year EarthSpark packaging, and the inner
tray keeps the "simple display globe and Autobot symbol" pattern in shades of
purple with white. There does not appear to be any new art, so no hint of
how the Exo-Suits are going to look on the show.
Along the left border of the front window are five hexagonal insets
under the claim "5 WAYS TO PLAY." There's vehicle and robot modes for the
Transformer, a single hex with the Exo-Suit, and then pictures of both
combiner modes. There's a "CYBER-COMBINER" logo in the top center, featuring
an octagonal loop of two arrows around the name, with the character names on
either side of it. The left panel has slightly larger pictures of the two
combined modes, the right panel uses existing character art of Bumblebee and
Twitch as relevant. The back has an even larger set of pictures of the
combiners, and smaller insets of the individuals (same as those on the front,
and about the same size). The upper right corner of the back has the logo of
the Transformer in the set, which is also used in the upper right corner of
the front and behind the right side character art. So, this is where the new
Terran symbol shows up. (Note: I keep typing "terrain" and then having to go
back and fix it, don't be surprised if I missed fixing one.)
The figures are strapped in with plastic ties, which mostly keeps them
from moving, although they're stretch enough you can open BB's chest and
store his head. The instructions are loose behind the inner tray...I
wouldn't recommend trying to get them out through the holes in the inner
tray, though.

General Quality Comments: EarthSpark's first year toys tried some new
ways to economize, including a ball joint that reportedly wears out fairly
easily as it gets rubbed smooth (I never had trouble, but I also didn't take
the time to endurance-test the joints in the way a kid would just do
naturally). A few of that type of joint, if noticeably smoother and
therefore probably less prone to wear, are in these toys, but there's a LOT
more pinned joints than were typical of first year ES toys. There's still
obvious shortcuts and "cheap-outs" in the designs, but these just feel more
robust. While not up to the standards of the Generations toys, it's a step
up, at least with these guys. They do not feel brittle in the way that a lot
of older EarthSpark toys do. While still clearly being the economy line with
a higher profit margin, this feels improved.


TERRAN: TERRAN TWITCH
Assortment: F8438
Altmode: Drone
Transformation Difficulty: 9 steps from robot to drone
Previous Name Use: EarthSpark
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: No

Packaging: Three ties hold the robot to the tray on the left side,
although even after they're cut it takes some work to get the backpack wings
out through the gap in the inner tray.
The box back render has the root joints of the back nacelles in clear
plastic, the actual toy has them as dark gray...perhaps the original plan
failed a drop test.

Robot Mode: Rather bigger and brawnier than her usual design, since all
of the figures need to be about the same height and of similar builds. She
does still have the chipmunk cheeks that give her a babyface. The wing
nacelles are completely made of cloudy clear yellow plastic, oddly enough.
It does suffer from the usual hollowness of the non-Generations lines,
although the fold-out combiner feet fill in the backs of the boots at least.
The skinny wings are entirely missing.
5.5" (14cm) tall in mostly red and black with bits of yellow and bluish
silver. Red plastic is used for the head, most of the upper torso and the
backpack, the upper arms, the fists and that end of each forearm, thighs, and
the outer shells of the boots. Faintly metallic black plastic is used for
the wing roots, shoulder joints, the non-fist halves of the forearms, inner
torso, pelvis, hip joints, knee joints, back of the boots, and feet. The
combiner clips behind the head are also black plastic. The nacelles on the
back and the ones on the boots are made of cloudy clear yellow plastic.
The inner thighs are painted a bluish silver, while regular silver is
used on the face. Metallic black paint is used on the intake vents on the
chest and around the central "eye" of the drone, as well as details on the
shins. Bright yellow paint is used on the eyes, the central chest lamp, and
details on the shins.
The head can nod down on a transformation hinge, making it the only one
of the four with any real neck articulation. (None of them have waist
joints, due to the need for the pelvis to split apart for Shirt Mode.) Ball
joint shoulders, hinge elbows, pinned universal joint hips, hinge knees that
bend both ways (another Shirt Mode requirement). The toes fold up for
transformation but the soft-ratcheting hinges do allow for stable poses. The
lack of thigh swivels really hurts general articulation, though. The main
nacelles are on ball joints, and each is made of two disks connected by a
swivel joint, so that the wingtip parts can be swung around for different
modes.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, and there are 5mm sockets under the toes.
There's 5mm pegs on the backs of the boots, these go into the toe sockets in
Pants Mode. There's also 5mm sockets on the fronts of the main nacelles.

Transformation: The preparation for either Shirt or Pants mode involves
folding the head down, bending the forearms at the middle so that the arms
can swing back and grab the pegs on the main nacelles while tabs on the
nacelles go into slots in the backs of the upper arms. For Pants Mode, all
that remains is to swing out the foot-extenders from behind the boots. For
Shirt Mode, instead fold the toes up and split the pelvis apart. The new
head nad chest will pop out, then just adjust the winglets and the pose of
the leg-arms.
When closing up the pelvis after being in Shirt Mode, it can require
significant force to get it to properly lock. This is kinda a problem for
all four, to varying degrees that I suspect are more QC roulette than design
issues.
Going to vehicle mode instead folds the chest up over the head, folds
the arms together over the chest and locks them onto tabs on the pelvis, and
bends the legs on extra joints inside the thighs to collapse them down. The
legs should probably be done before the arms, though. The arms require a LOT
of force to snap the tabs into slots. Finally, fold out the rear fan
nacelles and rotate the main ones around so that tabs on the sides of the
torso go into slots in the nacelle housings.

Vehicle Mode: Um. Well, to be fair, this is a very hard altmode to turn
into a decent robot even when that's all you have to do. With two more modes
needed...kinda a lost cause. This has elements of the show-version altmode,
but it's probably best to view as an entirely different "heavy drone" sort of
thing. Rather chonkish with hoverfans bolted on, what looks more like a
proper cockpit than the suggestion of one, and the original "face" of the
drone kinda stuck on at the bottom.
4.5" (11cm) long with a wingspan of 4.75" (12cm), more red and less
black than robot mode. About the only thing to otherwise mention color-wise
is the yellow paint on the cockpit.

Shirt Mode: The new head is basically the regular head with extra fins
on the earcups, a capsule-shaped visor in bright blue and that paint
extending onto the forehead crest. The fists are molded into the undersides
of the toes, so they're not that distinct especially since it's all black
plastic there. This also means that the sockets in the fists are kinda
shallow.
When bent backwards as elbows, the robot knee joints are floppy. Still,
aesthetically it makes for a decent top half. The top of torso and head adds
1.75" (4cm) to the whatever combiner she joins.

Pants Mode: A bit skinny-legged, although no more so than Mo in Pants
Mode. Really just the robot with the arms folded back and platform shoes on,
5.5" (14cm) tall not counting the clips.

Overall: Compared to how some of the Energon figures turned out, this
wasn't too bad an effort.


HUMAN: ROBBY MALTO
Assortment: F8438
Altmode: None other than combiner modes
Transformation Difficulty: No separate steps.
Previous Name Use: EarthSpark
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: Sort of? His mom worked for them, but he has no faction
symbol at all.

Packaging: On the right side of the tray, held in by three plastic
ties. The cannon is held along the bottom center edge by two ties.

Robot Mode: This is one of those weird situations where there's
simultaneously no way the wearer could just be folded up inside the torso and
also no way their limbs could extend into the suit limbs without breaking the
second the suit moves. Inside the cloudy clear blue-green helmet there's a
fully painted Robby Malto head which gives us the sense of scale for the rest
of his body, and it...doesn't work. I guess handwave that his body is
shunted into subspace and only his head floats in the helmet, otherwise
transformation would snap his neck anyway. :) Serious hollowness in the
forearms and thighs, but the rest manages to avoid that problem.
The suit's design is rounded for the most part, with a mix of
blue-green, bluish light gray, and black, with some bits of silver and
gunmetal. There's a sort of bustle in back that becomes the upper chest of
Shirt Mode, with the combiner head hidden in the backpck. The backs of the
fists have blue- green gem details that evoke the Cyber-Sleeves from which
these suits probably spring. While there's no official vehicle mode (but see
below), the feet are tank treads, which evokes the idea that there might be a
vehicle mode. Or it could just be intended to be like Lord Dredd's generals
in Captain Power, suggesting a tank mode (or in Mo's case, a jet mode)
without actually having one. Interestingly, the design is deliberately
asymmetric, with the shoulders having different shapes and the paint
detailing on the thighs being different from each other. A bit more subtly,
the forearms and fists also don't match exactly, although the boots and feet
are symmetric.
5.5" (14cm) tall in mostly light slightly metallic bluish gray and
black, with a significant amount of blue-green (sort of a seafoam green), and
some silver and dark gunmetal. A clear blue-green plastic is used for the
had and the chestplate. Slightly metallic light bluish gray is used for the
rest of the upper torso, the upper arms, forearm/fist pieces, thighs, boots,
and feet. Black plastic makes up the combiner clip, shoulder roots, elbows,
lower torso, pelvis, hips, and cannon. The Robby head is probably light
bluish gray, but since the helmet is held in and held together by a long pin
I'm reluctant to try disassembling to check.
There's silver paint on the borders of the helmet and the chest
windows. Blue-green paitn on the top of the helmet, the gems on the backs of
the fists, and stripes on the sides of the boots. Dark gunmetal that almost
blends into the black of the elbows is used on the upper arm parts that
aren't shoulderpads, and much of each thigh. Robby's face is painted brown,
his hair and eyebrows black, and his eyes white with brown pupils.
The neck does not turn, and the common transformation scheme means the
waist can't. The shoulders are ball joints and the elbows are simple
hinges. The shoulder roots and mid-bicep have transformation joints that can
be leveraged for a little more range of motion, but the need for a hinge in
the upper arm means there's no way to have a swivel. Pinned universal joint
hips, hinge knees that can bend both directions but tend to lock solidly into
"straight legs," the toes can fold up. No thigh swivels.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's a 5mm socket in the middle of
the back as well as one under each toe. There's 5mm pegs on the backs of the
boots, those are for the "big feet" part of becoming Pants Mode.
His weapon is a big cannon that has "tank gun" vibes to it without being
a Megatron cannon. I wonder if they deliberately avoided a forearm socket to
keep it from looking too Megatron-ish in use? It's all black plastic with no
paint, 4" (10cm) long. The 5mm grip is about 1/3 of the way from the back
end, and the barrel tip has a 5mm socket so it can use some Fire Blasts
borrowed from Generations toys.

Transformation: The common steps mostly involve stowing the head (the
chest pops open and the head folds down into it), then folding up the arms
and tabbing them onto the sides of the backpack. The secondary joints in the
upper arms need to be folded all the way or the slots won't line up with the
tabs.
For Pants Mode, all you need to do after this is fold the elevator shoes
out from the backs of the boots. This does leave the backs of the boots very
hollow.
For Shirt Mode, fold the toes all the way up, then split the pelvis in
two and pull apart. The combiner head and chest will flip out on a spring,
and then just bend the regular legs to pose as arms. The bit that had been a
sort of bustle in regular mode covers most of the chest window, and the new
head is actually smaller than the regular helmet, although it's still
plausible for Robby's actual head to fit in there, given the extreme
compressibility of hair.
The pelvis on mine doesn't like to stay locked, but unlike Bumblebee
(see below) there's not a problem with the autotransformation if the pelvis
is a little cracked open, and the black plastic at least makes the gap less
obvious.

Pants Mode: I mean, it looks like a headless robot thrusting its chest
forwards and attempting to get its elbows to touch in the back, standing on
platform shoes. However, the beefier legs do make it a good bottom half for
a combiner pair.

Shirt Mode: The pelvis becomes black shoulderpads, the new helmet has a
smooth opaque seafoam green faceplate with a sort of mecha-fauxhauk crest.
The center of the chestplate looks like a row of cables. Unlike Twitch's
fists, the molded-but-not-painted fists are a little more obvious on the
lighter plastic of this guy, and the sockets are significantly deeper thanks
to the chunkiness of the tank tread toes. The regular fists now flank the
shoulders, and you can mount the cannon in one of them rather than in the big
fists.
If you flip the regular head back out and kinda ignore Robby's face
inside, it makes this on its own look like one of those hovering drone robots
with an antigrav hemisphere on its underside.

Vehicle Mode: Technically, none. However, you can get something that's
at least as convincing as some of Shockwave's recent walker-tanks. Here's a
picture of it and the sorta-jet I got out of Mo's Exo-suit:
http://www.dvandom.com/images/MaltoModes.JPG

Overall: While I do kinda wish they'd managed a few more points of
articulation or a little more of an honest altmode (just molding some treads
on the forearms would have sold the ad-hoc mode shown above), it's pretty
good for a $15 "not for collectors" line toy.


TWITCHROB

TwitchShirt: Probably the more dynamic-looking of the two, although it
does suffer more from backpack issues due to how Robby's arms just sort of
stick out the sides. Just a little over 7" (18cm) tall at the head, with the
wingtips going up to a centimeter higher depending on how you pose them.
There's an extra swivel in each pelvis half that doesn't work in robot mode
that lets the arms have very good range of motion at the shoulders,
especially when combined with the robot hips. The robot hip joints give the
combiner upper arm swivels.
Downside of my copy is that the elbow hinges are rather loose, so the
combiner's arms tend to fall limp.

RobbyShirt: The backpack looks a little better in this mode, more like
an intentional jetpack, and as noted earlier you can put the cannon in one of
Robby's regular fists as a shoulder cannon. Unfortunately, the loose knee
joints on my Twitch make it hard to keep this version standing without
external support. Slightly shorter at only 7" unless you bump the height up
a little by mounting the cannon on the shoulder-fist. The clip part on the
right shoulderpad does get in the way of properly seating the cannon there,
though. Same extended shoulder articulation as in the other mode.

Set Overall: Keeping in mind the inevitable compromises that happen when
you go Energon-style combiner, I think they did a pretty good job here. It
gives me hope that we could someday see a HasLab or Titan Class Landcross
team. And most definitely a huge step up from the spin-changers that
occupied this price point in the first year EarthSpark toys.


AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE
Assortment: F8439
Altmode: Sportscar
Transformation Difficulty: 9 steps robot to vehicle, 7 steps robot to base
combiner shape (basically Pants mode but without the extra feet folded
out).
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: No

Packaging: 5 ties hold robot mode into the left side of the inner tray.

Robot Mode: A little leggy, but otherwise surprisingly good-looking
given the limits of the gimmick. It does have a problem with the combiner
head popping out unless you have the pelvis REALLY firmly snapped together,
but that's the only significant QC issue on mine. Amusingly, the fake
taillights on the knees are painted, but the molded actual taillights on the
tops of the shoulders are not painted. The only serious hollowness is found
on the forearms and inner thighs, which are black plastic so the issue is
visually mitigated. It's nowhere near as show accurate as the Deluxe
version, but it's a lot less fiddly and finicky (those shoulders in
particular are a bit of a hassle on the Deluxe).
5.75" (14.5cm) tall in the usual Bumblebee colors. Black plastic is
used for the wheels, combiner clip, shoulder roots, some of the backpack,
lower torso, pelvis, thighs, and extended toes. The rest is bright yellow
plastic. Bright blue paint on the fake windshield on the chest and on the
eyes. The face is silver, the fake taillights on the knees are bright red,
and a 1cm tall red Autobot symbol is printed on the sternum. (Most of the
paint budget went to vehicle mode, by a little.)
The neck and waist are both immobile. The shoulders are ball joints,
with the roots being on transformation struts that can be pulled out a little
to increase range of motion. Simple hinge elbows that bend 180 degrees.
Pinned universal joint hips, and the knees are hinges that soft-ratchet to
about 90 degrees in either direction. The toes are on transformation hinges
that are stiff enough that I suppose you could get some meaningful
articulation out of them.
The hands hold 5mm pegs, and that's basically it (the wheel hubs on the
shoulders are a little bigger than 5mm wide).

Transformation: Vehicle mode first. Fold the forearms up all the way,
open the chest and stow the head. Snap the boots together and then fold the
roof parts up to snap against the backs of the legs. The sides of the boots
fold up to become the doors, and then the upper arms tab down against them.
Finally, the toes fold up against the shins. Getting the roof pieces to stay
in place is a little tricky, you need to bend the thighs a tiny bit back and
forth until you get the roof to snap down firmly.

For Shirt Mode or Pants Mode, the shared beginning steps are to fold the
elbows all the way up, then pull out the shoulder roots so that slots on the
inner surfaces of the upper arms can go onto tabs on the back. The combiner
chest pieces are on springs and fold out of the way enough for this to work.
Open up the chest panel and fold the head inside (it's a little difficult on
mine to get it back out without using a knife, though). Finally, fold the
toes up against the shins.
For Pants mode, the only remaining step is to rotated the backs of the
boots (the hood and roof pieces) down 90 degrees to form bigger feet. For
Shirt mode, instead pull the pelvis apart so that the legs become arms and
the the head and chestplate automatically pop up and over the torso core.

Vehicle Mode: Okay, so there's a huge hinge in the windshield, and the
combiner chestplate is just sort of sitting on top of the back roof, but it's
otherwise a decent representation of the animation model of the sports car.
The roof doesn't tab firmly into place unless you get the legs bent JUST
right, which means some big seams along the bottom edges. In any case, it's
better than Twitch's vehicle mode, although that's a very low bar to clear.
5" (12.5cm) long with most of the black plastic hidden inside, just the
wheels, combiner clip in back, and a bit of combiner chestplate on top of the
trunk are black plastic. The windshield and side windows are painted bright
gloss blue (except for the unpainted hinge), as are the headlights. There's
the dual black stripe down the hood, and I guess that black plastic bit on
back is supposed to be the stripe continuation.
It rolls okay on the snap-on wheels. The front wheel hubs work as
decent 5mm sockets, but the rear hubs are a little too big for that. There's
5mm pegs on the sides of the doors, those go into the front hubs in robot
mode. On the underside the fists can be used for connecting flight stands,
as can the combiner fists.

Shirt Mode: The new head is basically the regular head with longer horns
and a visor covering the eyes, while the new chest does look vaguely like it
could be the vehicle mode hood spread out a bit. As with Twitch, the
combiner fists are all unpainted black, but they're a little more clearly
fists in this case, and the sockets are deep enough to hold onto most pegs.
The face is painted silver and the visor is bright blue, that's
basically it for paint in this mode...the rest of the toy's paint is hidden
inside folds and the like.
Same arm articulation as the other Shirt Modes, no neck. The chest
plate is held down by a spring, and is a little floppy. The door panels end
up on the inner faces of the forearms, which is a little awkward.

Pants Mode: 5.75" (14.5cm) tall on its own including the combiner clips,
and basically just looks like a headless version of the robot mode with the
arms shoved back and standing on elevator shoes.

Overall: It does a good job in both combiner modes, and is a not-too-
horrible robot and car. Your basic, "Don't ask how well the bear rides the
unicycle, be impressed it rides at all," situation.


HUMAN: MO MALTO
Assortment: F8439
Altmode: None other than combiner
Transformation Difficulty: 7 steps to get ready for combination (like BB,
basically Pants mode without the feet folded out).
Previous Name Use: EarthSpark
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: Also sort of?

Packaging: Five ties hold the figure into the right side of the tray.
Her sword is tucked into a tray corner flap in the lower left, and you do
have to open the box or cut the tray to get that out.

Robot Mode: Basically the same colors and most of the same design riffs
as Robby's suit, but skinnier and with wings and a sword instead of treads
and a cannon. There's a little more symmetry here, and Mo's head is small
enough that it's plausible she could be all scrunched up inside the torso
(until the head flips over and breaks that illusion). The wings are attached
via peg and socket, so they technically count as accessories, but the figure
doesn't have enough other sockets in the right places to really take
advantage of this.
5.5" (14cm) tall in basically the same colors as Robby. The
cloudy-clear seafoam green plastic is used for the helmet, chestplate, wings,
and sword blade. The pegs for the wings and hilt of the sword are black
plastic, as are the torso core, abdomen, pelvis, shoulder roots, hip joints,
upper halves of the forearms, and toes. The head is untestable paint-covered
plastic. The rest is bluish gray plastic.
Bluish silver paint on the non-faceplate parts of the helmet and
non-window parts of the chest. Dark gunmetal paint is used on the thighs
(except for the armor panels), inner parts of the upper arms, and a vent on
the back. There's seafoam paint on the upper shins. The head is painted
brown with black hair (maybe...she might not have hair at all), and white
eyes (the pupils are brown). No eyebrow paint, but they are molded. Kinda
creepy "grandma plucked her eyebrows and hasn't applied the pencil yet" look
there.
Ball joint shoulders, hinge elbows, and transformation hinges halfway
down the overly long forearms. Pinned universal joint hips, the same sort of
reversible knees as Robby has. The toes fold up for transformation but don't
really offer useful articulation. The wings are pegged on and have hinges
where the pegs meet the wings, so they can be posed somewhat. They also have
mid-wing hinges so they can tuck together in combiner modes, but these are
snap-on pegs and tend to come apart.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs if you force them, but seem to be closer to
4.8mm, and there's dedicated sockets on the back for the wings. There's very
very shallow 5mm sockets under the toes, these are the Shirt Mode fists.
There's also 5mm sockets on the backs of the wings. There are 5mm pegs on
the backs of the boots, for the elevator shoe connections.
The sword is weird, it looks like it was intended to go with a figure
that had more 5mm sockets. Not only does the hilt have a hinge, there's
another "5mm" peg on the side of the root of the blade. Maybe that was
supposed to go into one of the sockets on the wings, but the peg is closer to
4.5mm and the hilt is 4.8mm, so neither stays in firmly. Maybe chalk it up
to factory error on the sword, and it was supposed to have 5mm pegs?

Transformation: The common starting point is similar to Robby's. Open
up the chest to fold the head in (mine has a really stiff joint, I need to
use the sword to get it back out), and then get the arms out of the way. In
this case, that means folding the forearms in half and bending the upper arms
back so that slots just below the elbows go onto tabs on the sides of the
backpack. The wings need to be folded back and then each wing folded in half
to minimize the profile.
For Pants Mode, just fold the lifts out from the backs of the boots and
peg them into the toes. For Shirt Mode, just fold the toes up and pull the
pelvis apart, the new head and chest woll pop out on their own.

Vehicle Mode: Again, techincally none, but a sort of jet-like mode is
possible if you've got very low standards.

Shirt Mode: The new helmet also looks a little small, with a more
V-shaped opaque seafoam green visor. The new chest almost looks like an
Autobot chest, with molded headlights, and the still-visible original chest
looks more integrated with it than on Robby's. The robot arms are minimally
intrusive, one advantage of being so skinny.

Pants Mode: A bit skinny, in the "skipped leg day" sense. Same height
as other Pants Modes, and while the wings are out of the way they don't look
great here.

Overall: This really feels like it's a few 5mm sockets and some thigh
swivels away from being a much better toy. It's still got the intended play
value, but it has the feeling of lost potential.


BUMBLEMO

BumbleShirt: This looks kinda awkward, with Mo's chest giving it a
little bit of a pot belly.

BumblePants: While still suffering from the longtorso effect of the line
in general, BB's flatter chest makes the torso look a little less weird, and
the sword looks better in Mo's hands than Bumblebee's.

Set Overall: It's got a lot of shortfalls, and the missed opportunities
on Mo do bug me, but it has solid play value.


MALTOMECH

Because of the compatible connectors, you can also combine just the two
Maltos. Either way it's 7" (18cm) tall and with a unified color scheme.
http://www.dvandom.com/images/MaltoMech.JPG shows what I think is the
better version, with Mo as the top half and Robby as the bottom. Bonus
Mecha-Shiva mode, since Robby's arms can be unfolded in combined mode.
(Robby-Shirt Mecha-Shiva is similarly not as good, because of the skinny arms
on Mo's suit.) http://www.dvandom.com/images/MaltoMech2.JPG for the other
option, which is a bit more top-heavy, no pictures of that Mecha-Shiva.
Not shown is MoShirt with the wings swapped to the other sides and
folded out. This is a good look.


BUMBLETWITCH

Unlike the MaltoMech, you're not going to get a unified color scheme
here, although Twitch's clear yellow plastic and yellow paint bits at least
provide some unity. Unless they borrow one from the Maltos, though, this
combiner lacks a weapon.

BumbleShirt: The oversized forearms continue to be a problem here, and
like the Bumbleshirt version with Mo this one has a pot belly. I suppose
someone out there might like the aesthetics of this combo, but I'm not that
person.

BumblePants: Like MoShirt MaltoMech, this has wings that look good. And
the flat chest of the Bumblepants works well with Twitch's drone face chest.
7.25" (18.5cm) tall, looks good IMO.

Vehicle Combiner: Yes, you can technically connect the vehicles!
Twitch's chest has to stay down, though, so Bumblebee's rear wheels won't
touch the surface. And her arms need to be in combiner configuration, since
they won't fold down with the chest in the way. Still, it's an interesting
"mount an orbital launch booster to a car" look, 8.75" (22cm) long.


OTHER NOTES

Technically any two can also both be in Pants Mode for a quad walker
mech, but only the versions including Robby and his cannon mounted on back
are credible.

In case anyone's wondering how I'll be displaying these (once I make
room for them), it's gonna be the MoShirt MaltoMech in Mecha-Shiva
configuration and the BumblePants version of BumbleTwitch (which can
technically do Mecha-Shiva too, but not as convincingly).

Assortment Overall: It's a pity that this is probably it for the
concept, since it's unlikely anyone else will show up with the CyberSleeves
needed to pull this off. I'd love a set with Mama Malto and Megatron.
Anyway, good play value, and they seem to be reasonably durable (I've
transformed them a LOT while checking out different combinations), so I'm
gonna say try 'em out.


Dave Van Domelen, really should've boxed up some Transformers over
winter break like he'd planned to do....